Archive for Kenta Maeda

With the season winding down, the high leverage moments never cease. Since bullpens could be a determining factor in many races, it’s going to be intriguing to see how teams monitor usage to keep pitchers fresh. One preemptive strike occurred in Los Angeles with the Dodgers announcing Kenta Maeda will transition to the bullpen in preparation for the playoffs. While part of this can be attributed to his 2.08 ERA in 17.1 innings as a reliever in the playoffs, it’s also a move to depress his pay within his contract. Last night, Maeda worked the last four innings for his first save giving up four hits, three earned runs and striking out five against the Rockies. His owners will need to adjust how to deploy him going forward, but there’s a chance to mine a couple of saves during the Dodgers last 22 games.

For the second straight outing, and second time this season, Roberto Osuna allowed a home run. Yesterday’s home run by Christian Yelich off of Osuna resulted in his first blown save since August 11th and sixth of the season. There’s no need to panic since Osuna’s entrenched as Houston’s closer, but he’s produced a 5.60 ERA, 4.17 xFIP and 1.19 WHIP over 17.2 innings since the All-Star break while allowing five home runs. Following a go ahead home run by George Springer off of Junior Guerra, Josh James recorded the first save of his major league career navigating around two walks with three strikeouts.

As alluded to above, monitoring pitcher usage will be tantamount to success down the stretch. Taylor Rogers notched his 22nd save with a clean ninth inning striking out one. He’s converted his last six save chances for Minnesota anchoring a bullpen which ranks second in the majors in ERA (3.41) since July 24th. However, Rogers owns a 7.82 ERA when working in consecutive games with two losses and two saves in them this year. When he receives a day of rest in between outings, Rogers ERA drops to a minuscule 0.96 with two wins and 20 saves spanning 46.2 innings. Food for thought.

On the other hand, Carlos Martinez thrives this year working in back-to-back outings. He locked down his 17th save of the year logging retiring the last four hitters in a row, two via strikeout. Martinez leads the National League with 14 saves in the second half and pitched in consecutive games 13 times this year closing out all nine save chances in them. He’s also generating the highest ground ball rate (60.8 percent) of his career. Andrew Miller gets his 23rd hold walking one and striking out one in one-third of an inning. Miller’s only allowed two hits against the last 26 batters he’s faced.

Remember when the Atlanta bullpen seemed to struggle despite all of the deadline acquisitions? Mark Melancon secured his seventh straight save on Monday striking out the side on 11 pitches against Toronto. Melancon’s converted all eight of his save chances with the Braves and only given up one earned run his last eight outings spanning 7.1 innings. Shane Greene turned in his 11th straight scoreless appearance with a clean eighth inning and a strikeout. He’s yielded four hits and one walk with 11 strikeouts his last 11 innings.

Quick Hits: Noting the Rays moved up their game with Baltimore to a doubleheader today. Yesterday, Colin Poche recorded his fourth win allowing a hit in a scoreless 10th inning. Emilio Pagan tossed a clean ninth inning striking out one and owns a 23:0 K:BB rate over his last 14 games dating back to July 30th…In an eventual loss, Mychal Givens preserved a tied game logging a clean outing with two strikeouts. He’s surged of late with a win and two saves with a 2.45 ERA, 0.64 WHIP and 15 strikeouts versus one walk his last 11 appearances. Hunter Harvey stranded a runner striking out the only hitter he faced and recorded 10 of his 16 outs via strikeout since his promotion…David Phelps nabs his second win walking one and striking out one on Monday…

Remember when Sean Doolittle was diagnosed with a strained toe and Davey Martinez said he just needed a day off?

That was 38 days and three closers ago. Doolittle’s injury — a stress reaction in his left foot — turned out to be far more serious, and while he is back to throwing off a mound as of Tuesday, the Nationals’ bullpen has been riddled with injuries and instability. They placed Ryan Madson on the 10-day disabled list on Tuesday, as he continued to experience back soreness even after getting treatment. So with Doolittle, Madson and Kelvin Herrera all on the DL, Martinez will now turn to Koda Glover, who is just a few weeks removed from his own recovery from a shoulder injury.
Read the rest of this entry »

Sometimes I have to stretch a little to include certain pitchers in either the Two Good Starts or Two Bad Starts category. It’s just unwieldly to occasionally call this column Two Good Starts, One Bad Start and One Meh Start, for example.

In the case of Lance Lynn, his recent game log could be more accurately described as One Excellent Start, One Great Long Relief Appearance and One Decent Start. I’m not changing the name of the column, but I’m going ahead and squeezing the square peg into the round hole. If it feels better to convince yourself that Lynn’s final start with the Twins was genuinely good or that his long relief debut for the Yankees was really a start, I am not going to stop you.
Read the rest of this entry »

And it’s evident you should now pay attention to him. Jeff Sullivan wrote about Miles Mikolas here — Sullivan does a good job of summarizing Mikolas’ skill set and how he’ll succeed stateside. Which is helpful. But, for fantasy purposes, it doesn’t help us a whole lot in terms of exactly what we should expect. Not that that’s Sullivan’s fault. He doesn’t keep a cross-league projection system in his brain.

So when you see a Tweet like this — from NEIFI Analytics, which FanGraphs has featured previously — it’s hard to ignore:

Congrats, Cardinals. Per NEIFI, Mikolas handily outperforms Jake Arrieta over next three seasons. Massive bargain, fantastic bet to be the most underrated FA of 2017 class.

— NEIFI Analytics (@NEIFIco) December 5, 2017

Then again, there are Tweets like this from ZiPS’ own Dan Szymborski:

Read the rest of this entry »

Originally, I intended on identifying pitchers who are worth buying based on their SwStr% for this article. And then I got hung up on Kenta Maeda’s work this year and couldn’t pull myself away. Alas, as the title of this article suggests, you won’t be getting a piece about trade/free agent targets based on SwStr%, but you will get a full-blown endorsement of acquiring the services of Maeda. Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve started our annual Depth Chart Discussions, re-branded as Playing Time Battles for 2016. You can catch up on every team we’ve covered in the Playing Time Battles Summary post or following along using the Depth Chart Discussions tag.

For most teams, the offseason loss of a superstar pitcher like Zack Greinke would be crippling. The Dodgers are not most teams. After posting a miniscule 1.66 earned run average in 222.2 innings in LA last season, Greinke headed within the division to Arizona, with $200+ million coming his way over the next six years. Despite his departure, the Dodgers are the favorites to take down the NL West again this season, holding a six-game advantage in our projected standings.

Obviously, the Dodgers still have Clayton Kershaw. Most teams are not blessed to have even one true ace, not to mention two of them. Still, instead of standing pat, the club reloaded, adding Scott Kazmir and Kenta Maeda to bolster the rotation. After four disastrous seasons that led many to consider Kazmir’s career essentially finished, the now-32-year-old resurrected his career in a big way, delivering three consecutive solid campaigns. While he’s not the strikeout machine he was a decade ago, Kazmir provides a steady veteran presence in the rotation, averaging over 30 starts in each of the last three years.

The right-handed Maeda is an unknown quantity heading into his first season in America, which led our own Eno Sarris to search for a comp. If Eno’s analysis is sound — and I’ll go ahead and trust that it is, seeing as Eno probably knows approximately 5,386 times more about the game of baseball than I do — the 27-year-old Maeda looks to be an Aaron Nola type. There’s plenty of value to be found in a steady mid-rotation arm with upside, and that’s what he seems to be. (In an interesting twist, Maeda is the only righty expected to make the Dodgers’ Opening Day rotation.)

Read the rest of this entry »